


As Above, So Below

by scriveyner (trismegistus)



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: M/M, Post-Series, shipwrecked
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 03:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6549043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trismegistus/pseuds/scriveyner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He thought about Laurent, hair gone dark with seawater, left to the carrion birds, and turned, heading up the beach.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so, so sorry.
> 
> Tags updated as fic progresses. Because I am so, unequivocally fucked.

It was the wheeling cry of the scavenger birds that finally drove him to move. The beasts had grown bold, carrion-seekers that strutted across the sand before him, eying his prone form and waiting for the right moment to dive in, seeking a juicy, unprotected morsel. Damen curled his fingers in the soft sand and forced his arms underneath him, weak as a newborn foal.

The water crested behind him, splashing back over his legs, lonesome tide rolling out. The birds didn’t take flight at his movement, simply speed-walking away, hanging around in case he decided to expire right there and leave his carcass to feast. Damen ignored the birds and staggered to his feet, limbs screaming their protest as he scanned the deserted shore and thought, stomach raw, that Nikandros had been _right._

How many times now, had they made this journey? Up the coast by boat, racing the summer heat to the north. Without fail, Nikandros protested — said it was a mistake to go together, what if something _happened_ , this newly-formed mishmash of cultures and customs was barely out of its infancy; weak and malleable yet. Nothing had happened so many times, he’d forgotten the danger that the open sea posed.

The open sea, glittering blue and calm, the soft wash of waves hitting golden shores. Damen stood and stared out to sea, watching the crest of waves hitting something below the surface, creating whitecaps. The storm had blown up on them fast, the stillness of a humid night torn asunder by winds and waves. The oarsmen struggled against the might of the sea, and without hesitation Damen joined in on the main deck, trying to help brace the masts and pull the sails, securing the lines whipped free by the might of the storm.

He remembered very little after that. Laurent beside him, hauling on a line as hard as he could, the sailors too busy, too in need of help to protest where it originated from, everyone working together to try to prevent the ship from capsizing.

The sharp crack of the mast as it split, him shoving Laurent away as it fell between them, shattering the timber of the deck and causing the ship to lurch uncontrollably. Then seawater in his mouth, in his lungs, tangled in line and fighting the dark seas.

Something large had pushed him to the surface and when his head broke surface it was to hear the panicked screams of men thrown into the water as the waves battered their ship to splinters. He couldn’t get air in his lungs to shout the name on his lips, and was nearly battered senseless by the flotsam before the same large form nudged him, pushed him away from the carnage and Damen, barely conscious, held on to a dorsal fin and let it.

He saw them now in the sunlight, playing in the water beyond the whitecaps, flashes of silver in the blue. Mereswine, the sailors called them; _delphinus._ He remembered vividly, not even a day ago, standing beside Laurent at the rail, the spray of ocean water coating everything as they watched the creatures chase the swell of the boat, flying as quickly through the water as birds did through the air.

Less than a day, and it felt like a lifetime.

Damen’s throat closed up. It would do him no good to stand here and stare out at the ocean until the sun set; the storm clearly took them in to land. It was a matter of figuring out how far they’d come, and getting back to a keep and reporting the wreck.

_And the death of a king._

He was not ready to face the finality of that thought. Damen looked back along the beach, a stretch of golden sand broken here and there by the occasional rocky outcrop; dark verdant jungle pushing its edges. The foliage was unfamiliar; but it wasn’t like Damen had ever traversed the entire coast of the kingdom.

The birds that had sat waiting, hoping on a quick meal took to the sky as Damen moved for the tree-line and he hesitated, seeing other scavenger birds wheeling in the sky along the coast. If there were other survivors …

A king’s first duty should be to his kingdom. He had to find a hold, a keep and let them know of his survival, it would be at least a fortnight before anything would be noticed amiss as they’d left early and not notified the port when to expect their arrival. Foolish, _foolish_ of him.

He thought about Laurent, hair gone dark with seawater, left to the carrion birds, and turned, heading up the beach.

There were no bodies, where the birds circled. Damen didn’t know whether to feel relieved or not; he turned over waterlogged flotsam with both hands. The sun had dried the salt on his skin, he’d gone parched with thirst but knew not to be tempted  by the gentle, warm waves.

As he came around the last of the flotsam, cracked bottles that had once held wine but now bobbed empty in  surf he saw something that made his heart skip, a beat of hope. In the soft sand beyond the reach of the tide there were tracks, footprints heavy and varied. They led off, a winding course but headed toward the tree-line, and without second thought he followed them.

The thick foliage shadowed a rock outcropping and that’s where he lost the tracks; and as Damen made to climb the rock a strange chirping caught his attention.

It wasn’t a bird, although it was feathered like one. It was the size of a falcon, head coiled and serpentine, and it perched on the top edge of the outcropping, watching Damen.

“Shoo,” Damen said, waving a hand at the creature as  he found a handhold that would take him up the side of the outcropping. It didn’t shoo, it moved closer, eye green and unblinking. It was colored blue and white, the pattern on its feathers leaving one to imagine shadows on sand. Damen ignored it and hauled himself up, onto the rough sea grass that ran the length of the outcropping, back to the dark shadows of the trees.

He stood for a moment. From here he had a slightly better vantage point, and could see all sorts of flotsam washed up on the beach. There were a lot of birds on the ground further up along the beach, clustered around something that Damen was certain would be a body. He made to move, to sling himself down again, sick with what he’d find there when the creature leaped past him, arms and feathers extended. He turned, following its trajectory into the leafy green, and beyond that, gold.

It took only a few seconds to cross that distance and  shove the branches aside, heart in his throat. Damen looked down at Laurent, sitting with his back to the trunk, small feathered creature perched on his shoulder. He looked almost bored, casting his ice-cold glance over Damen, but he could see the flicker of emotion in those eyes. “Well,” Laurent said. “Took you long enough.”

* * *

There was blood in his fair hair, dried black in the shadows. The gash was above his left eye, the salt water having dried out the wound. Damen took his face in both hands to inspect it, ignoring the immediate protest, picking that one thing to focus on. “You’re alive,” he said, relief making his voice shake.

“Somehow,” Laurent said when he could finally get free. “It was the mereswine, they rescued me from the wreckage, I’m not sure how.”

“And pulled you to shore,” Damen said. Laurent didn’t confirm, but he knew it for truth. “They rescued me too. I don’t know of any others.” He brushed his thumbs over Laurent’s temples and tilted his head down, mindful of the painful gash as he rested his forehead against Laurent’s. “I thought the sea took you,” he said, and his throat closed before he could speak again. It was a struggle to swallow.

After a long moment of silence in which he was content to just hear their breaths together, Laurent pulled his hands down and away. “There is freshwater,” he said, and indicated deeper into the trees. The small creature on his shoulder hopped over to his other shoulder, extending both arms and displaying feathers again. Laurent moved his head just slightly, to avoid the sweeping motion.

Thirst won out over further questions, and Damen discovered that the freshwater source was a deep stream trickling from deeper in the woods, headed toward the sea. He plunged into it without hesitation, the water enough to hit him mid-thigh, and drank deep.

“We have passed Karthas,” Damen said, still standing in the water. “This is north, then.”

Laurent did not stand. He stayed seated with his back to a tree, finger stroking the short feathers on the creature’s neck. “This is not our land.”

Damen ducked his head into the water, scrubbing his fingers through his hair. “We’re in the midlands. We’ll find a small keep and get horses, and be to Karthas or Marlas in less than a weeks’ time.”

Laurent gave a shallow laugh and extended his hand. The small creature hopped over to the perch he had created and settled there serenely, preening for just a moment. “Tell me, have you seen anything like this in all Akielos?”

“There are many beasts I have heard only in tales,” Damen said shortly. “It is small, it could easily be passed over. That means nothing.”

“We aren’t in the midlands.” Laurent’s mouth was pressed into a thin line.

Damen stepped to the edge of the stream, water dripping from his hair. “You’re addled,” he said. “You were struck in the head by a spar-” he meant to add on to that further, but Laurent’s face closed off and his eyes flashed and he knew he overstepped and meant to keep going anyway, except his next words were drowned out by a noise he’d never heard; a roar deeper and older than the boars and bears he’d seen on hunts.

Only a tiny hint of amusement crept into Laurent’s voice, at Damen’s expression. “This isn’t the midlands,” he said, as the small creature perched on his hand craned its head back and gave off a pale imitation of the cry that still echoed in the breeze.


	2. Chapter 2

Sunlight, bright and remorseless, trickled down through leafy fronds to throw a moving pattern across the forest floor. The foliage grew thick here, strange and unfamiliar. Damen had gone back to the waters edge and found amid the flotsam little of use; although fortune favored them and the body that had washed ashore was one of the guardsmen, sword still buckled about his waist.

Damen still was not fully convinced this wasn’t the mainland, strange fauna not withstanding. He made plans to venture deeper into the forest, washing the salt-encrusted blade in the freshwater as Laurent stood in the shade of one of the tall, tilted palms. His new pet perched on his shoulder, tiny curved claws leaving red marks on his exposed skin but never quite breaking the surface to draw blood.

He didn’t watch Damen work but instead stared out at the expanse of bright blue water, unbroken but for whitecaps where the tide hit the hidden reef. There was a slight downturn to his expression, and he tilted his head on reflex as the creature shifted from one shoulder to the other, shuffling around his neck.

“I’ll chase it away,” Damen offered, shaking water from his hands, sword at his side.

“If nothing else, we have dinner.” Laurent said, arms folded and eyes still on the sea.

“We still had the shore to our north just last evening,” Damen said. “Before the storm blew up. We were clearly blown off course, but there are no islands along the coast save for Isthima in the south.”

Laurent was silent for a long while. Damen turned his back to him and walked back to the stream; if they were to set up camp anywhere it would be beside free-flowing water. None of the flotsam yielded anything to carry drink in, all the pottery that had washed ashore was smashed to shards.

“You still believe this is the mainland,” Laurent’s voice carried on the still air.

“It cannot be anything else.” He was confident in that. When he glanced back toward Laurent, Laurent gave him a considering, calculating look that he knew all too well. Damen waited for him to come to a decision, and then Laurent gave a small nod. “Let’s get as far as we can before dusk,” Damen said, and turned to the dense forest.

Behind them, the ocean slowly reclaimed the detritus.

 

* * *

 

The forest thickened considerably, a mix of familiar tree foliage and strange, new flora. The sword came in handy for helping clear a path; and Laurent too drew his small knife to help cut away thick scrub. Damen’s mouth had quirked in amusement when he saw the blade; he had offered Laurent the sword out of habit more than anything, and with an arched eyebrow Laurent had responded that it was better in his hands anyway.

Several times the small bird-lizard left Laurent’s shoulder - but it always returned, shortly after. One time it tried to alight on Damen’s shoulder, how it could mistake him he wasn’t certain, but it scoured thin, deep scratches into his shoulder that welled blood instantly and stung like a firebrand.

Laurent wiped the blood away from his shoulder with the torn sleeve of his loose shirt, a compromise between the harsh, overly-complicated Veretian clothing and the loose, sparse clothing common in Akelios court. “The creature simply mistook you for a tree,” he said, and his hands were more tender than they needed to be.

They rested by the stream and listened to the music of the forest, the calls and echoed cries of creatures unfamiliar to the ear. The bird-lizard flitted from rock to rock, head moving swiftly, cocking back and forth and freezing as it too listened to the melody of the fauna. Laurent drew in the dirt with a stick, tracing an approximation of the stream and their progress so far, and Damen watched the bird-lizard.

There were tracks left impressed in the dirt, from when the forest floor had been churned to mud. Damen had never seen anything like them, as far apart as wagon wheels and large enough that he could stand comfortably in the impression. The forest was not as thick here, the trees set apart and the underbrush tamped down by the passage of beasts he could not fathom.

Laurent too, did not have explanation for the tracks. He simply shook his head, measuring the stride, crouching by one track and sighting along it. “If it is in proportion to a horse,” he said as he stood, “its withers would be higher than your head.”

Even with the sword at his side, Damen felt a twinge of hesitation at facing down such a creature. If it was a predator, then they may not last the night.

“If it is a predator,” Laurent said, reading his mind without looking at him. “Then its prey would be have to be much larger to sustain it. I doubt such creatures would be able to remain hidden long.”

Dusk besieged them not long after the discovery of the tracks. They made camp for the night in the shelter of rocks beside the water. The fresh-running stream was thick with fish but Damen had little luck trying to catch them bare-handed. When he slipped on the wet rock and went under, he came up to Laurent laughing at him.

Laurent climbed one of the strange, high trees and cut down palm fronds that were nearly as big as they were, letting them drift gently down to Damen waiting below.

“I thought we were eating the bird-lizard,” Damen said as darkness crept over the forest, Laurent set against him, their backs to the cold rock, small fire burning bright against the night.

It slept beside the fire, curled into a small feathered ball. “We’re not starving yet,” Laurent said, comfortable under his arm.

“Speak for yourself,” Damen muttered as his stomach rumbled.

 

* * *

 

The exhaustion of the day and the night preceding meant he slept even though he did not mean to, back to the rock and sword to his shoulder. Damen awoke to the soft patter of gentle rain, spitting down from the canopy above. He leaned forward to wake Laurent but couldn’t move, and he discovered that for wont of a pallet Laurent had settled his head in Damen’s lap.

For a heartbeat, he did not move. The blood had mostly flaked from his hair, but his temple was bruised now, a sickly yellow-green around the gash. Damen brushed his hair aside, fingers gentle, to uncover a blue eye already open and watching for him. “How long have you been awake?” he asked, fingers lingering.

Laurent was smiling, sleep-soft and content despite the misting rain. “Long enough to feel you wake,” he said, and Damen shifted, then realized.

“Your creature is gone,” he said, and Laurent pushed himself carefully from Damen’s lap, lifted an arm and revealed it, nestled half in the open front of his dirt-smudged shirt. “It thinks you its mother.”

“Perhaps.” Laurent roused the beast and it unfurled slowly, recognized the soft misting rain and then made to stay under cover tucked in his shirt.

The rain was not heavy. It did, however, make visibility worse, throwing up a fine misty fog that hung low around the trees. They made slow progress, and as the terrain changed they had to part ways with the stream.

It was mid-morning when Damen heard the low braying of something like livestock. He didn’t have time to speak or warn Laurent when the shape broke through the fog.

There were two of the beasts, walking single-file through the misty jungle forest. It was thicker abreast than two horses and but stood no taller; a thick coat of armor and small stubby spikes ran along its back. Its head, thickly armored as well, brought to mind cattle. Damen took a step back, his hand on the pommel of his weapon although it would do him no good.

The armored beasts paid them no mind. They moved slowly, long clubbed tails waving the air and occasionally cracking through trees and underbrush. The second one was much like the first, although it wore a bridle of sorts, or perhaps some kind of broken lead. The leather was snapped and torn through and dragging through the mud on one side.

And then, just as quickly as the creatures had breached the morning mist they were gone through the trees, leaving a few cracked branches and mostly-round tracks in the mud.

It was a long while before either of them spoke, and it was Damen who breached the silence first.

“We’re not on the mainland,” he conceded, mouth dry. Laurent, at least, did not have the temerity to look smug.


End file.
